March Beneath the Raptors Wings

Captain's Blog Stardate 90756.87

Before I get into the topic of STO's May update, I want to make a quick announcement. Very soon the skill planner will be getting a major update to version 5. When I say major, I really mean HUGE. I completely recreated it from scratch and added tons of new features. If you'd like to read about it check out my two posts in the STO forums (Post 1, Post 2). I expect to release it sometime this week assuming my final tests turn out good.

As some of you may have heard, there is going to be a major update to Star Trek Online in May. The only hint we have so far can be found at http://sto.perfectworld.com/sto_may2013. It is definitely related to Romulans, but that's as much as we know. Cryptic has stated that this update is so large they aren't calling it Season 8. The official name on that page (if you scroll over the Romulan letters) is March Beneath the Raptor's Wings. So for the remainder of this blog I'll be calling it MBRW.

Unfortunately we'll have to wait until we get closer to May before Cryptic gives us any major details about MBRW. My initial though was that this is a Romulan faction; however Cryptic has said many times that we won't get a Romulan faction until the KDF is on par with the Federation. So here are three possible scenarios that I see.

Scenario A: We get a Romulan faction but it is essentially a copy of the KDF. They won't have a tutorial, will start at level 20, and have a few exclusive missions. If the KDF has it, the Romulans will have it. No more, no less.

Scenario B: The KDF gets a major update and is on par with the Federation. The Romulan faction is created and is either a copy of the current KDF faction or is on par with the Federation and the updated KDF faction.

Scenario C: There is no Romulan faction, just some major updates to the Romulan story and tons of missions based on it. Maybe even some major updates to the KDF faction.

In all honesty, I could be completely wrong in all 3 scenarios and MBRW is something completely unexpected. Right now we know of a few features that are coming with MBRW as stated in the last Ask Cryptic, but nothing that even gave a hint at what big things are coming with MBRW.

Personally I would love to see the Romulan faction being added but only if the KDF finally gets some much needed love. I don't play on the KDF side often so what is added to it doesn't really affect me, but I still believe that it should be on par with the Federation. I have 2 reasons for this. One, since it is a faction in the game it should be treated equally. Two, if it is brought up to par with the Federation then I truly believe more people will play it, especially since they'll be able to start as a KDF officer right away instead of having to go through the Federation first. Although I'm getting slightly off topic here.

Anyway, I really don't know what to expect. As always I'll keep you updated whenever I hear something. What are your thoughts on MBRW?

Releasing it in May will certainly make May the month of Trek! (As the new Trek movie releases that month too-)

My guess is that Cryptic will bang out 20 levels worth of missions that work for 1-20 for KDF and Romulan characters, and then like the KDF, the Romulans will have 6-10 unique missions that are only Romulan. (Plus all the featured espiodes)

They should also have ~5 new featured episodes on a new arc, if I am remembering correctly.

I am hoping with all the hype, that they just don't drop some new Romulan/Iconian missions, and no playable Romulans, as I think they are really getting people excited talking about the size of the update....

If that is their plan, they should give us a heads up so the player base doesn't get let down closer to May-

@ChrisHerr, The way I see it, don't get your hopes up lol. I assume towards the end of March, beginning of April they'll start announcing things. I highly doubt they'll wait until the end of April to announce stuff.

As if Cryptic has the spine or the inclination to fix the KDF. They have demonstrated time and time again they care nothing for the Klingons, its players, or Klingon culture. I wouldn't be surprised if they released a Romulan faction on par with the Federation and left the KDF to rot.

I end up doing DOFFs just as much for my KDF as my Fed. I like them both and still haven't played much of the Fed story, so quests aren't important to me. I'm max level only due to DOFFs. I'm starting to enjoy the culture of the KDF a lot.

I hope for option B, but even just adding more missions to the lower KDF levels would knock my socks off.

Maybe it will somehow relate to the movie if it's in May? Don't know how it could considering it's about the Romulans.

A friend of mine who know's more about this stuff than me has said that it's not a Romulan Faction, but just a major content release, and also a major system "update" if you can call it that, for the game in general.

The Content will go off of the Romulan Rep. T5 Mission, and have to do with the looming Iconian threat, and the Reman-Romulan storyline.

And yes, all signs point to the Klinks getting love before the new faction.

I am definitely looking forward to that, being a Klink player myself :)

I'm definitely hoping for some more KDF content since I've been playing on that side a bit more lately. If that included a few more ships that don't cost a crazy amount of fleet marks, I'd be thrilled, but I'm not holding my breath.

Additional Romulan missions that continue the storyline from that episode and the rep missions on New Romulus would be interesting since I've enjoyed that storyline and it seems to have been left hanging.

I really hope what Kirkfollower24 said is true and there's more KDF content before adding a Romulan faction, because I think a large percentage of players (me included) would be fairly disappointed to have another subpar faction like the KDF foisted upon us.

Well the devs have said that they want to fix the KDF before releasing a Romulan faction, so I assume this is still the case.

Frankly though, it's not the devs fault that the KDF doesn't get much love, it's the higher ups. They don't see much profit in creating things for the KDF and therefore the devs aren't allowed to do it. It's sad but true.

I guess I'm different than most folks, but I don't really find the 1-20 game all that interesting, so I'd be very happy if they boosted up the mission play for KDF in the post-20 game. That said, I'm pretty sure you won't be celebrating May by playing a Romulan. Considering the ill-will the handling of the KDF faction has generated, I don't think they'll want to magnify that with another under-served faction.

So, what else could it be? How about if the Tal'Shiar and the Iconians straight up made their move, and the Feds, KDF, New Romulans were thrown on the defensive as the T'S, Tholians, Mirror Universe and whoever else is hanging out at the Space Villian Hiring Hall that day start a big push, backed by the Iconians at key points?

I am very curious to see what they come up with for new content. I would guess some more advancement in the New Romulus story arc. Possibly a more complete New Romulus (seeing as how we are currently helping to rebuild/build their world) and possibly playable Romulan and Reman Characters (I assume they would be playable on both KDF and FED not a new Romulan Faction)... But we shall see and I am very much looking forward to getting the next juicy teaser!

It'll hopefully be very interesting. I've been working up my KDF char the last couple of weeks in between Borg runs with my Fed toon. There is far too much of the SAME SAME missions between the two factions there. Still fun, but rather repetitive. Let's hope KDF hits parity and a Romulan faction appears as well.

All I'm saying is the biggest reason I am sticking with STO no matter how much my friends try to lure me to other games is I REALLY want to play as a Romulan, I've been wanting that since I first heard of STO like four years ago. If I'm not playing an actual Romulan Romulan flying a D'Deridex warbird within the next 2 years, I'm going to be REALLY (self censored) off.

It is interesting the time lag between the March 21 release date on the launcher vs a 'May Update.' I am curious that the space between would be ideal for a new featured series, likely Romulan/Iconian focuses. Remember that they did have Denise Crosby in for work - why wouldn't they have gotten some Sela audio as well.

As much as they have indicated that finishing KDF would be first, given the state of the game, aside from the breadth of content, it seems to me that it would be far easier to create a full faction vs modifying an existing one -- I wouldn't be surprised if we see the emergence of the Romulan faction in the May release.

After all for order of things, the PVP and Crafting revamps were all to be done for the first half of this year, but they appear to be pushed way back. I don't ever assume anything the Devs say is set in stone, particularly order-wise.